Aug. 20, 2013

Activists participate at a protest against Russia's new law on gays, in central London, Saturday, Aug. 10, 2013. Hundreds of protesters, called for the Winter 2014 Olympic Games to be taken away from Sochi, Russia, because of a new Russian law that bans 'propaganda of nontraditional sexual relations' and imposes fines on those holding gay pride rallies. / Lefteris Pitarakis / AP Photo

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In 2014, in Sochi, Russia, somebody has a chance to be this generation’s Tommie Smith and John Carlos.

Somebody, maybe a straight athlete, maybe a gay athlete, has a chance to wave a rainbow flag, or speak out against Russia’s repressive anti-gay law, which was just passed in recent months. Or maybe it will be part of a larger message from a larger group, a whole host of those allied with the Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transgender (LGBT) community.

There’s been a lot of smart talk about boycotting the Sochi Games given their homophobic laws that deny people the right to express their sexual orientation in public spaces.

I get it.

But I can’t get with it.

A message would be sent by a boycott, but a stronger message would be sent by sending thousands of free-thinking, tolerant athletes to the Games with the chance to act and speak out politically against Russia’s repressive laws.

Which act made a more powerful statement?

President Jimmy Carter’s Cold War-inspired boycott of Moscow in 1980, or medal-winning sprinters Smith and Carlos holding a fist to the sky in a “black power” salute in 1968 in Mexico City?

Which act would have made a more powerful statement?

Boycotting the 1936 Berlin Olympics in a country that already had enacted anti-Jewish legislation and was just two years from Kristallnacht? Or Jesse Owens winning multiple gold medals and sticking it in Nazi leader Adolf Hitler’s face?

The point is, free-thinking, tolerant citizens can make more of an impact on Russia and its LGBT community by going and saying/doing something than by staying home and hiding behind some executive order.

I concede, this is dangerous territory. If the Russians are willing to repress gay life in Russia, where will it stop? Who will be next on the hit list? By the 1936 Berlin Games, Germany was already three years into enacting anti-Jewish laws that consigned Jews to second- and third-class citizenship.

For all the talk of Owens’ heroics, very few talk about how the International Olympic Committee pressured the U.S. to drop two American Jews from the U.S. relay team, for fear of embarrassing Hitler. The head of the IOC, the fabulously corrupt Avery Brundage, later saw his business partners get the contracts to build Hitler’s German parliament building.

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But come February, the world’s eyes will be on Russia, and it’s in front of those eyes that athletes can make a difference. Gay or not, they can speak out on behalf of their brethren, challenging the Russians to do something they truly don’t want to do with the globe’s focus on them. Can you imagine the Russians arresting figure skater Johnny Weir for brandishing a rainbow flag after a medal-winning performance?

Garry Kasparov, the Russian chess master, wrote this recently for the Huffington Post:

“Everyone remembers the “ ‘Black Power’ salutes raised by American sprinters John Carlos and Tommie Smith on the medal podium in Mexico City in 1968. Sochi will be ripe for similar gestures. So I hope the visitors will wave rainbow flags and speak in favor of free speech and against hatred and bigotry. The television networks should discuss the law and what it means to be gay in (Vladimir) Putin’s Russia. Sponsors should include LGBT individuals and human-rights themes in their Olympic advertisements. Of course the decision to act is up to each individual, but in the West, unlike in Russia, politicians and sponsors still listen to the people!”

The Russians are going to be embarrassed on their own turf. It’s already happening, with a Swedish pole vaulter displaying her fingernails painted in rainbow colors on the victory podium at the world track championships in Moscow.

Enlightened athletes from across the globe will overtly challenge the law with expressions of support for the gay community. Weir, who is married to a male of Russian parentage, has said he’s willing to go to jail for being himself.

Boycotts are slippery slopes, one the Americans don’t want to navigate.

Especially on this issue, where we have our own crosses to bear.

I go back to the Jewish sprinters who were dropped from the U.S. team in 1936. One of them, Marty Glickman, talked about German anti-Semitism, but noted there was still plenty of anti-Semitism in America as well.

We have plenty of homophobia in America, even if the laws aren’t as repressive.

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We’re not exactly coming from a position of great moral strength here when we mention a boycott. Gay marriage is only legal in select states. Same-sex couples are still denied full rights in different pockets of the country. We’re not as Draconian as the Russians are with this medieval law, but the U.S. has been painfully slow to accept its own gay citizens as equals.

The hate crime statistics against lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender are startling: In 2008, nearly one in five reported hate crimes came against those of alternative sexual orientation.

Again, a slippery slope.

Did the world boycott the 1932 Los Angeles Games because of America’s repulsive treatment of black Americans, especially in the South?

Did we boycott Beijing, China, as a way of protesting that government’s horrendous violations of basic human rights?

Did we say no to Australia despite its historical mistreatment of its Aboriginal people?

The point being, we can look at virtually any Olympic host and find laws we find reprehensible, policy flaws that are anathema to our way of thinking.

And then, of course, there are the athletes. By and large, they train for years and years with a very small budget. These aren’t Dream Teamers who live in swanky hotels. These are bobsledders and lugers and ski jumpers who survive on a small budget and spend four years or more awaiting this one moment of athletic fulfillment.

Let’s go to Sochi in 2014.

Maybe, just maybe, somebody — or lots of somebodies — can make a difference.